


West Covina Wasteland

by FeoplePeel



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Background Femslash, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 02:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10561566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeoplePeel/pseuds/FeoplePeel
Summary: The end of the world started in West Covina as Greg had always suspected it would. It also happened on the day Darryl flew across the country because, while there were many accusations that could be leveled at the town, lack of narrative timing was not among them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poolsidescientist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poolsidescientist/gifts).



> Written for [poolsidescientist](http://archiveofourown.org/users/poolsidescientist/pseuds/poolsidescientist) for the CXG Fanworks Swap, hosted by [rebeccabunchs](http://rebeccabunchs.tumblr.com/) over [here](https://crazyexfanworkswap.tumblr.com/)! Many thanks to [alamorn](https://alamorn.tumblr.com/), who let me untangle scenes with her, and my beta, [Liz](https://goddamnrey.tumblr.com/) <3

“And Madison’s doing okay?”

“She’s fine,” Josh says, and he would think it’s sweet that Darryl cares about his daughter so much, but this has to be the third time _this conversation_ he’s doled out the reassurance. “She’s still upstairs. Still doing her homework.”

There’s a beat of silence before Darryl’s sigh comes across the line. “Sorry, I’ve just never left her alone this long.”

“You’ve mentioned.” Josh leans against the counter, resists the urge to peek in on the pizza. “Would it help if I reminded you, _again_ , that she’s technically not alone.”

“Fine,” Darryl acquiesces. “Without me, then.”

Josh didn’t know the specifics of the case that had taken a fair few of Whitefeather & Associates to New York, but he knew the hopeful outcome was less Plimpton Sr. and more Plimpton Jr. As separated from reality as the latter was, he managed to be fairly decent at his core.

Which, anatomically speaking, was lacking. Honestly the man was committed to leg day and nothing else, and just thinking about it now makes Josh cross his arms to keep from bristling.

Whatever the outcome, Josh had offered to pick Madison up from school and practice on the days Stacy couldn’t. Darryl had a babysitter he could call but...this was nice. Paternal.

“Miss me?” Darryl asks when Josh has been quiet for what Darryl must have considered too long.

“I do.” Josh pulls the pizza from the oven and sets it on the cooling rack. “It’s nice to have a huge bed, but--”

“Oh, I know, I got a king!”

“But I’m not really used to it,” he laughs. “And Madison _seems_ to like having me around, but we’ll see how she feels when your month’s supply of snacks run out.”

“You could move in when I get back,” Darryl says, and he sounds so needlessly hopeful that Josh almost laughs again. He doesn’t have the heart to tell him he’s moved so many of his things in the months they’ve been dating that it feels like he’s abandoned his apartment already.

“Maybe.” He reaches over to turn off the stove and takes up his spot against the counter again. “Now can you go back to explaining how Maya got her foot stuck in a sewer grate?”

* * *

When the pizza’s cool, he goes upstairs to fetch Madison. She’s still dutifully working on her laptop, and he leans over to check what he’s missed in the last decade of scholastic learning when the word _suicide_ catches his eyes.

“This is _not_ homework.”

“I finished,” she chirps, clicking another box. “This site figures out if I can survive the apocalypse. Everyone in class is taking it.”

“Morbid.” He sits on the edge of the bed, reading over more of the questions in silence. “Any particular reason?”

“Because of the dams.”

“Ah,” he tenses, listening to her click and click and click. “Come downstairs. We’ve got chicken barbeque pizza.”

“Sounds _loaded_ with calories.” She half-turns to him, a grin plastered on her face.

“I know.” He relaxes, smiling back. “You’re spoiled.”

* * *

Water in California. It seems to be all anyone talks about.

It started raining two weeks back, the day Darryl left for New York, and it...didn’t stop. Josh falls asleep to the soft sound of rain. He wakes up, hopes, throws open the drapes, and sags at the sight of rain. Again.

Josh knows, immediately, which gym members he’s seen the back of for the foreseeable future, until the sun is shining again and they can work out their glamour muscles just enough to show off on the beach. Madison’s baseball games are cancelled. Chan and Brah work double time; California’s homeless have never needed shelter from something like this.

The worst part is walking Madison to school every morning and home in the afternoons. Stacy always drives her, even though the building is only a block from her house, but Stacy’s five hours away at a conference. With Darryl equally pulled from home by work, Josh can’t think ill of her. He does wonder what _Madison_ thinks, left with someone who’s more like a kind older brother or a strange uncle than a surrogate parent. If she does mind, she doesn’t complain. She’s saved all of that for the moment she pulls the squelching tennis shoes off of her feet and throws them, haphazard, into the foyer.

It’s a week before Josh caves and buys her rain boots. They’re bright green with yellow spots, and he impulse-buys a matching rain jacket that he catches her showing off on the way into the building. That morning, she demanded a picture of her be sent to Darryl, too.

Josh picks up his phone and checks it for...he can’t remember the number now. Darryl sent a series of enthusiastic (and admittedly adorable) emojis one week ago, complained about the snow there (as copious as the rain here), and then...nothing. No overly concerned parental advice, no weirdly specific shopping tips, no cute videos forwarded from Maya, no awkwardly endearing requests for phone sex in the form of a paragraph-long flirtation. _Nothing_ for two days.

Josh had kept an eye on the national news with everyone else, but he’d have to be a special kind of blind to have missed the East Coast earthquake that coincided with Darryl’s forty eight hour silence, the claws of its epicenter stretching down to Georgia and up to Quebec. He’s able to get through to Greg, who is safe and happy that classes are cancelled the next morning if nothing else. Josh is...fairly sure that Darryl and the rest of Whitefeather & Associates are safe, too, but between downed towers and delayed flights, there’s no way for him to be certain.

He had spoken to Stacy, who was flying back down to West Covina tomorrow. The planes are still in the air, she told him. A few rumbles on the ground can’t stop progress in the sky.

He tries calling again only to be met with the same, grating, out-of-service message, and sends off another text. _Madison at school, going for a run, hope you’re safe. Love you._ It’s in the same vein as the last five or so he’s sent (twenty five...he’s not counting them), but if Darryl _is_ receiving them, better he knows there’s still someone on the other end.

Josh cinches his jacket around himself, looks at his shoes--still wet from this morning’s walk--and opts for his sandals instead. A run, even just to get out of the house, seems daunting but he manages a light jog at least. All the carefully manicured plants in Darryl’s neighborhood are dead, drowning under the onslaught, and he’d find the bitter gardeners plight funnier if he weren’t drowning himself.

He stops when he reaches the coffee shop near his gym. He’s worried about Ben and David and their outdoor stall, probably abandoned now. He hasn’t checked.

“Hey, Liz.” Josh blows into his hands. The air is always on full blast, like they’re convinced they’ll wake up tomorrow and the sun will break through the clouds if they just keep the air on one more day.

The woman manning the complicated looking machinery nods at her hands, which don’t slow at their pace on the knobs and levers. “Flat white?”

“That’s fine.”

Behind the counter, he can see the news is, unsurprisingly, showing a chart of the sea levels rise; the apocalyptic decimation of California’s beach by the year 2100 if this rain is any indication. The suffering of local wildlife as a result. Elizabeth finishes what looks like a latte for another wet patron and follows his gaze to a group of stranded turtles, her lips thinning before she flips the channel without a word.

_The Santa Fe Dam--_

“Turn that up, that's us,” Josh stops her before she can change the channel again. She shoots him a look but sets the controller down.

 _...now we have been informed that while this_ **_is_ ** _an unusual situation, its function as a dry dam makes this the perfect place for flood control._

_It's just doing its job_

The man’s laugh sounds distant and hollow through the small speakers. _Exactly._

_Nevertheless, these are extreme weather conditions compared to what we normally face so please be careful on the roads and follow these important safety instructions. Bill?_

_Thank you, Nancy. When dealing with heavy rainfall..._

Josh thinks that something is wrong with his ears. There’s a feeling of expanded air just inside, like he’s climbed too high, and he stretches his jaw reflexively to no avail. The television goes silent, Bill’s mouth continues to move on the screen for a moment longer before the TV cuts out entirely and, with it, the lights of the shop.

Then, all at once, Josh feels the air leave his ears with a small _pop,_ and the world under him shifts with a massive _crunch_.

He tries to catch Elizabeth’s eye, but she’s busy making her way to the back of the shop; for a flashlight or to check the breaker, Josh doesn’t know. The other man in the shop hit the ground under the nearest table like a pound of flour. Josh grew up in California, and he knows his earthquakes. This...wasn’t that. He picks his way through the tables to the door and peeks outside where others are similarly making their way out onto the street. He turns back to see Elizabeth fiddling around with a speaker on the counter. When he draws closer, he realizes it’s a AM/FM radio.

“Seems like the whole block is out,” he tells her. She gives him a look as though that much should have been obvious.

It’s eerie waiting around her old radio in the coffeeshop like they're in a bunker waiting for a tornado to pass. She twists the knobs, as expertly as she had on her cafe machinery, until the static fades to an unfamiliar high pitched hum that raises the hairs on Josh’s neck.

"What's that?"

"Old emergency broadcast signal. For when the dams break. Haven't heard that in a while, but….” She looks outside, where there are more people clumping together, the rain no deterrent to their curiosity. “I'm not shocked.”

Josh leaves the shop without his coffee and doesn't go to the gym. He turns down the path to Madison’s school instead, calling Darryl without thinking, listening to the out-of-service message all the way through, and texting him when it fades to silence.

 _I don’t want to sound dramatic, but I think SoCal is falling into the ocean._

_This is Hector--_

_And Maria!_

_And you’re listening to WCRS!_

_All the tips you need to survive out in this West Covina Wasteland._

_Today’s list of found survivors will be posted outside of the newly built acting Town Hall as well as Home Base._

_If you’re planning to head east, be sure to ask for Valencia or Heather. They’ll get you set up and shipped out!_

_The good Fathers of St. Christopher would like to reiterate that, while_ **_everyone_ ** _is welcome in the hallowed halls of the shelter, please keep the order of need in mind when you queue._

_Those who can, work. Those who can’t, support._

_Speaking of shelter--the construction crew is always looking for more hands, so all of you newcomers, head over to Josh...the white one, not the priest._

_You know what, just talk to Valencia._

_Good call, Mom. Newcomers, talk to Valencia about everything. And if she’s mean to you, talk to Heather!_

_Now joining us today, we have Teresa Warrick, all the way from Lake Havasu City! She'll be answering questions on the state of affairs a little further east. Now Teresa, we hear there's a nice camp set up where you've come from? Why the move?_

Josh listens with half an ear, most of his attention focused on Madison tinkering with the gadgets piled in the pull down stadium seat next to her.

Madison’s gotten used to tinkering. She has CD and tape cassette players scavenged from the various pawn shops that litter West Covina. Sometimes she stumbles on someone’s old iPod, but there’s no way to change out the songs and nowhere to charge it anyway, so it’s a temporary delight. Josh marvels that the newer tech has become something of a throwback. The pawn shops that used to be trash dumps are veritable gold mines now. She switches them out instead of changing the batteries; better to save those for the more useful items, although Josh quickly learned that having something to do was very useful. A bored ten year old in a ruined world led to the sort of trouble he never could have predicted.

Or he could have if he had read over the answers to her ‘surviving the apocalypse quiz’ more carefully.

Valencia falls into the seat next to him, and he turns the radio off altogether to look at her instead. The end of the world's been surprisingly good to the woman, tanner than ever and her hair tugged back into some semblance of a ponytail. When the rain had finally stopped and people were traveling again, California seemed to be where everyone wanted to go. _Because all the dams_ , they'd say, before they'd realize it was miserable in California too and have to go back the way they came.

And that's when Valencia had stepped in.

Opening a bizarre supply post for West Covina’s wasteland wanderers hadn't exactly been her dream job, but she was a deft hand at organization, and she loved bossing everyone around during those first few months when things were insane. Home Base was just a dilapidated building before she managed to save the _Home_ part of the sign and drag both Josh Chan and himself along to put it up for her...the rest seemed to follow.

“New crop of people from Nebraska.”

Josh feels his eyebrows lift. That's farther east than they've had. Not New York or Georgia far, but…

“What do they have to say?”

She hands him a box of protein bars. They look more colorful than what had been dropped in town starting last year.

“The power’s back on, but that doesn't mean much. Most of the north is frozen. Looks like the crop failure is everywhere; this stuff is all foreign aid.” She motions to the box. “It didn't hit every country.”

“You going to let Hector and Maria run that story?”

“Not my call now that we have a _town hall_ ,” she says, her tone cool and dismissive. “Heather wants to.”

Josh doesn't tell her that means that they're going to run with the story because he imagines she already knows how tightly she's wrapped around the other woman's finger. As unassuming and un _demanding_ as Heather is, she can always convince Valencia to follow her lead.

Something she'd learned from Rebecca, Josh starts to think and cuts it off with what feels a bit like internal whiplash. He occasionally has the thought--he’s sure they all do-- _Rebecca could, Greg could, Darryl could--_

But they aren't here.

Josh pulls his focus back to Madison, who _is_ here and needs him. She seems to have found a few things she likes, her pockets bulging now. “Ready to go home?”

“One sec,” Madison says, tongue held between her teeth and pressed against her lips. She prises the back off of a radio, and Josh makes a mental note to trade for more chapstick and finger balm.

“Thanks for giving her first look at all that junk.” He quirks a grin at Valencia who pretends not to be affected. He knows she's horribly pleased that Madison likes her so much.

“Well, she did call dibs,” Valencia points out, as though she takes that into account for anyone else at the outpost. “And besides, it _is_ junk. Still not sure what she needs it for.”

“She hasn't told you?” Josh lowers his voice because Madison is far enough away not to hear them but close enough to try. Valencia shakes her head, eyebrows furrowing with anticipated worry. “She’s piggybacking off of the signal here, sending out some code meant to reach her dad’s cell phone.” Valencia’s brow is unwrinkled and lifted in shock now. “She found a manual about it.”

“I still have Rebecca's number,” Valencia says, slowly, almost too quiet to hear. “If you think--”

“I don’t.” He knows his tone is more clipped than it ought to be. “But I don't want to discourage her when she's so hopeful. Besides, it's something to do.”

“Oh….” Valencia, wisely, says nothing more.

“Ready to go!” Madison says from closer than he expected her to be. He masks a startled jump by hopping from his seat and holding out a hand that she's really too old to take at this point. But with cracks in the ground and new pathways forming every day, town rules stand, and the buddy system is a very important one.

That, and when she slips her smaller hand into his, he feels like he might be able to keep her safe.

* * *

White trash bags litter the corners and countertops of Josh's otherwise pristine apartment; Madison’s things moved from Darryl’s unsafe, two story home and never unpacked. The only visible sign she lives here most days is the raincoat and her boots, splashes of bright green against the grey and blue decor.

Most of their days are spent outside, building up around an environment that is adapting more slowly than its people. It had taken a while to get to the building, dismantling the tallest standing structures for smaller, livable ones. Mostly it had taken quite a bit of yelling at the people who had cloistered themselves in the fanciest hotel in West Covina with stockpiles of food to move out and share.

Well, yelling and a working knowledge of the West Covina water system. Josh sends up a silent thanks to Whitefeather & Associates for that useful nugget of information.

He crawls into bed and pulls out his phone. Twenty percent battery...he and Madison promised they’d only use the solar chargers for the house appliances, so he'll have to hook it up to the camp stove soon. Not sure why he bothers when none of the cell phone towers are giving him a signal. Through his bedroom door, he hears Madison setting up the radio in its usual perch, adjusting it until a low hum fills the entire apartment.

He flips to the messages on his screen.

_Madison found another frog today. They're an improvement on the snails._

As though she knows she’s being talked about, Madison slips through the door and hops on the edge of his bed, cradling her phone in one hand and her latest pet, F.S. Frogsgerald, in the other. When she settles herself, cross-legged next to his shoulders, she sets the frog on her knee and her phone between them.

“Sudoku or Scrabble?”

This is something like school, so her brain doesn't rot. Madison reads a stack of books Heather's salvaged from her childhood home. Not the apartment Heather shared with Rebecca; that she _now_ shares with Valencia. The two keep a model home, same as Josh keeps Darryl’s, in an almost morbid memoriam.

_Anyway._

Occasionally, Madison reads books provided by Heather, and they're not exactly what she was learning in school, but the West Coast isn't put together enough to put their schools back in order yet. This will have to do in the meantime.

And between that there's--

 _“_ Scrabble.” Josh takes the phone punching in the two player option.

* * *

There are more people lined up by the survivor’s list. Josh missed Hector and Maria’s morning broadcast, but he can guess that a local bunch has wandered back home. Josh looks as a courtesy--his mother works on the construction sites with him most days, and his friends...Valencia would find him.

It takes him a while to recognize it, when he's searching by last name, but when he does, he draws in a short breath.

“Is it Dad?” Madison tugs at his arm to pull herself up. “Dad’s home?”

“Actually,” he steps to the side, giving her a better view of the names, “it's your mom.”

There, at the bottom: _Stacy Webster._

* * *

They hadn’t thrown out the idea of Madison’s mother, especially in the first few months.

They’d see the occasional car--most people stuck by the first safe city they found--but planes were...well, the lights were out and the towers were down and the planes couldn’t fly without them. They just figured if Stacy _could_ come, she would have been here by now. Sacramento was only a six day walk before last year--about a month with all the new cracks in the land--but a year? Plenty of people had made it from farther north by now. The whole reason he’d let her go on with that radio idea, night after night, was to keep her mind off of...

The point seems moot now, with Madison holding Stacy’s waist so tightly, head buried in her chest.

Madison forgot what it was like, being split between two places. A part of Madison feels protective of the white bags piled up in Josh’s apartment, and she assumes Josh must too as he's mentioned nothing of them to her mom. It had been her mom’s fault for assuming she still lived at her dad’s place, anyway.

She’d slowly started to unpack a few things over the months. Her terrarium and the clothes she liked best. Dad’s weird gem collection that she’d set on Josh’s bedside counter. She’d found it displayed on the windowsill the next day, so she guessed he was happy about it.

Here, in her mother’s too large house--and Madison knows it’s too large because she’s read the Town Hall zoning ordinances front and back--she’s surrounded by the things she remembers loving as a child.

She kicks the molding of the door--carefully because the house _is_ too big--and knows that she _is_ still a child. She’s reminded every time someone calls her kid or takes her hand. But the buddy system never felt so... _smothering_ as this. She hasn’t been allowed to leave the house for _three days_ while her mom gets things ‘straightened’ with the people at Town Hall.

It wouldn’t be so bad being left alone as she always had been when she stayed with her mother, but every creak in the house sends her running outside until she thinks _whatever_ it is has passed.

Sudoku was becoming a special kind of torture. The Scrabble app stares up at her from the phone screen, lonely and untouched.

* * *

When it’s dark, she runs away. She’s self-sufficient enough that she can survive the day should ‘something bad’ happen during the night.

Besides, it’s not herself she’s been worried about since she followed her mom home. She’s worried about her dad, now that she has the time to think about it. She worries about the loss of ritual.

She can hear the radio before she reaches the window (she never realized how loud it was). It’s going in and out as Josh fiddles with the knobs, her manual open at his elbow. Most of her is so happy he's working on it, even with her gone, while the rest of her worries he’s getting it all wrong.

When he finishes, she lays down to sleep on the ground outside the window where she can hear the radio, the moonlight glinting off of her dad’s gem collection. She knows if she knocks on the door she might be allowed inside, but...he might make her go back to her mom's instead, and despite the hard ground, she’s much more comfortable here.

She does eventually go back as the sun is rising,  and her mother never knew she was gone. Not out of some grand neglectful parentage this time; it’s only that in the year they’ve been apart, Madison’s learned how to jimmy open a window very quietly.

Over her mother’s radio, Hector’s voice lists a steady stream of incoming survivors. Three names today, from Fresno, and none she recognizes. Maria breaks in with the latest from Town Hall, then the more important items, like the newest crop growth statistics, and Madison waits long enough to hear about the building projects that she knows Josh will have a hand in.

She finds him later that day, at one of the construction sites. She’s big enough not to idle, makes her way inside, where the people don’t know her, and carries equipment to and fro until the foreman calls break.

At the end of the day, she follows Josh to Home Base. It feels like he’s walking her home from school again, except she’s sore in ways baseball never made her and he has no idea he’s being followed.

She lets him catch sight of her before he reaches the door, and his eyebrows inch up his forehead slowly before he catches himself. “Madison? Where’s your mom?”

Madison must take too long to answer because Josh smiles--and it isn’t the welcoming, soft smile he always had for Dad or the half-formed awkward smile he saved especially for her. This is something disbelieving, frustrated.

“You ran away?” he asks and, before she can answer, says, “You ran away. Come on.”

He’s marched three paces past her by the time she turns to catch up. She finds the hand held out to her less inviting than normal and hesitates to take it. “Where are we going?”

“To let Stacy know you’re okay.”

“She’s probably not even home--”

“But when she _gets_ home, you should be!”

“I don’t _want_ to go back! You can’t make me!”

Josh stops in front of her and turns around. His lips are chapped and flaking. He gave her all the chapstick when he sent her away. “No, I can’t.”

“I don’t _have_ to stay with my mom! What is she going to do? Call the police?”

“She’s going to _worry_ about you, Madison.” Josh falls to one knee, grabbing her shoulders to look her in the eyes.

“I don’t want to go back,” Madison repeats. Josh’s head falls, and she watches his shoulders rise and shake with the intake of a stuttered breath. She lifts a hand to push at his shoulder a little. “I want to play Scrabble.”

“Valencia’s inside.” He turns her around with one hand. “I’ll go talk to your mom.”

Madison stands at the door of Home Base and watches Josh disappear over the stretch of her old playing field and into the copse of dilapidated buildings. She had won games on that sand.

This didn’t feel like winning.

* * *

Josh comes back with her mother when she's half asleep in Valencia’s lap, over one of Heather's books. She immediately feels terrible about leaving and shuts her eyes tightly, knowing Valencia won’t give her up.

“I expected to come home and...for everything to be like it was.” She hears her mother’s voice at the table behind her. “If I could get back to my house, and Madison, and--”

“Drink,” Heather orders, and Madison hears the thunk of glass hitting wood. “We don’t have a lot, but there’s always stuff to make booze.”

“So we just drink and pretend everything's okay?” Her mom laughs, sounding like her throat is full.

“No.” Josh is closer, and a moment later, Madison feels herself shuffled from Valencia’s lap to Josh’s arms. “We drink and make things better.” He sets Madison carefully in the booth, and she leans, ragdoll loose, against her mother’s warm body. “Start by letting this one out of the house.”

“We can babysit her if you have things to do,” Valencia offers from the bar.

“Stop fighting Town Hall about your house. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but in this case, you’re fighting the workers, and that neighborhood is next on our list for evacuation and leveling. We could really use the materials, and _you_ could use a smaller house.”

“Fine, fine.” Her mother waves an arm, jostling her a little. “I don’t know if Darryl ever told you, but I’m…”

“Particular?”

“That’s diplomatic,” she laughs.

“It’s the word he used around Madison.”

“Good to know.”

There’s a quiet so comfortable that Madison nearly does fall asleep. Then, Valencia speaks.

“You know, I do _like_ that there’s someone else with a pair big enough to go toe-to-toe with them.” She sounds thoughtful. “What? A couple of assholes decide we suddenly need a government, and _they_ get to pick who’s at the top because they got to the idea first? We can’t even print money!”

“I warned you it wasn’t going to work long term,” Heather’s tongue clicks.

“How about it, Stacy?” Josh asks. “You were a lawyer once. Feel like taking on the whole government?”

“I thought I already was,” she chuckles. “Can I keep my house?”

“No.”

“It was worth a shot.” She shrugs. “Sure, why the hell not.”

Town Hall eventually becomes Mom’s office, and much like her old life, Mom spends more time there than at home. Madison finds a weird normalcy in that.

And West Covina functions better as a unit, when the center of a slowly forming government and the only station in town _aren’t_ hiding anything from the few people left.

She’s allowed to stay at Josh’s apartment whenever she wants, as long as her mom or Josh walk her there. Mom abolished a lot of the weird rules, but she approved of the buddy system. Probably something to do with having a daughter who ran away.

“Oh, _mortuary_?” Josh stares at the phone in abject loss. “Where did you learn that word?”

“I saw it on the side of that building on what used to be West Garvey!” She grins, jumping from her side of the couch to land in the middle near his knees. “ _Funeraria Del Angel Pierce Brothers West Covina Mortuary_. Thirteen points!”

“Ah, man, West Garvey,” he says, inhaling deeply. “The Guadalajara Grill there was amazing.”

“Did Dad take you?” Madison asks because she remembers going there with the man in question...and because, if she sneaks up on him with the question, maybe Josh will answer.

“I took him, actually,” Josh says, attention on the phone in his hand.

“Do you miss my dad?”

Josh’s eyes flick from the screen to her, bemused. “Of course.”

“You never talk about him.” She raises herself up by her elbows, resting on her knees and using the back of the couch for balance. “You just listen to me talk.”

“Madison, you’re eleven now,” he says, and it’s a shock that her first thought is  _I’m eleven?_ Because she doesn’t remember turning eleven. Birthdays are cake and balloons and hats, not unmarked days. “Not everyone comes back, like your mom. You know?”

Madison searches his face for more than what he’s saying, because what he’s _saying_ makes no sense. She had given up on Mom because leaving and staying gone was what Mom did. She wasn’t hateful about it. It’s just the way things were.

Mom never came home, but Dad... _Dad_ always did.

Madison let herself fall forward with a bounce, squeezing herself between Josh and the back of the couch. Josh holds still long enough for her to get comfortable, then relaxes, eyes on the phone once more. She follows his gaze and purses her lips.

“Kettlebell is one word?”

Josh snorts with indignation. “Who _raised_ you?”

* * *

A month into her mother’s new West Covina, she wakes up in the middle of the night to the sight of a shadow from the hallway. Josh is hovering over the radio, eyes wider than she’s ever seen (and she was one of the first to see him, right after the world ended).

“I heard something,” he says, quietly, and doesn’t look away from the box. Madison shuffles up next to him, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and hunkers to a crouch.

They stay up all night and hear nothing else, save the quiet hum of static.

* * *

Madison is good at tinkering, and she only has time to get better. She helps at the radio station and new people who need parts found quickly.

More recently there has been the caretaking of Mr. Serrano and his awful cat, Bruno.

This primarily consists of making sure he isn’t a) dead and b) lonely. Until the latest neighborhood’s renovation, Mr. Serrano was happily staying in the shelter, and Madison was loudly informed that Bruno was his _son’s_ awful cat. She remembers Greg, at least. Mr. Serrano is much more open talking about him than Josh is about Darryl, or Valencia and Heather are about Rebecca. The adults don’t like talking about the people who haven’t come back yet, she’s noticed, so Mr. Serrano is a kind rarity.

“He’s gotta come back,” he tells her one day, over a packet of shared noodles. “He always said West Covina was a shithole, and no one can say _I told you so_ like he can.” He chews thoughtfully. “Well, except me, I guess.”

“He had to learn it from someone,” Madison offers helpfully, and he reaches across the table to muss her hair.

* * *

Madison is leaning over the sink, spitting out toothpaste and so absorbed in her reflection that, when it finally happens, she almost misses it.

 _You’re listening to WCRS and today it is a_ **_scorcher_** _! We’re looking at--_

_Madison?_

_\--with winds of--_

_Madison?_

_\--and construction next to Hedley--_

_Josh?_

Something about the voice finally tugs at her brain (Josh’s name being called in his house by someone who _isn’t her_ ), and she drops the toothbrush and reaches for her phone, halfway to the radio before she’s processed what’s happening.

She rips open the back of the radio, ignoring whatever it is Hector and Maria are talking about to slot the wires she’s learned by memory into place on the open back of her own phone. The radio cuts out with a crackle, then comes back with a low hum, no static this time.

“Dad?” she presses her face close to the phone, eyes flicking between the radio and it.

Then she waits.

_...Madison?_

“Dad!”

 _Madison,_ her dad’s voice sounds relieved and far more controlled than hers, but then, she lost that when she started crying. _How is F.S.Frogsgerald?_

Greg and Rebecca show up a day before the rest of the caravan, and Josh is on the outside of the four man hug, close enough to hear Mr. Serrano tell Madison in a stage whisper, “What did I say? Loves a good _I told you so_.”

Josh doesn’t know what it means, but he doesn’t have time to think about it before he’s being dragged closer by an overenthusiastic Chan, between Hector and Greg.

A short distance away, Heather and Valencia have Rebecca in a tight circle of their own, and Josh catches her eye for the stretch of a second. Maybe she’s trying to tell him something, but her mouth is buried in the hollow of Heather’s shoulder so he’s not sure what expression she’s making. He’s glad she’s here, regardless; he’s never exactly _liked_ Bunch, but something about her has always...inspired people. Josh knows there’s going to be a lot to deal with in the coming weeks. They could use a little of that right now.

When they make it to Home Base, Josh leaves Madison with Greg to explain for what has to be the third time that yes, that was her father on the radio and, _yes_ , he is on his way, only with a crowd of people and, thus, significantly slower.

It seemed as though Whitefeather & Associates had not kept idle in the past year. Well, he supposes Rebecca wouldn’t have let them.

Though judging by the look of her, sitting quietly between Heather and Valencia at the booth and staring at her hands, she doesn’t have the same restless energy he remembers. Maybe traveling, scooping up those wayward souls, has hollowed it out of her. Maybe this is Rebecca Bunch, stripped to the bone.

Whatever it is, she looks...steadier.

“The end of the world treated you well,” she says when he stops at the side of their table. She reaches out to grip his bicep. “Dammit. How are you not _emaciated_?”

He reaches into his back pocket and tosses a protein bar on the table in front of her.

“I see. The food of your people,” she says, flatly, playing with the foil wrapping.

“Sorry, we ran out of muffins about a week in, so we don’t have much you’d like,” he teases gently and, to his surprise, pulls the first real smile he’s seen from her.

She unwraps the bar and shoves half of it in her mouth. He doesn’t know if she’s that hungry, or if it’s for consistency’s sake, but she doesn’t bother to swallow before she speaks. “Anything’s better than overcooked rabbit.”

* * *

He lets Madison sleep with him that night, the radio pulled as close to the door as they can get it.

“I took the quiz, too,” Josh tells her, sometime around sunrise. He knows he should be telling her to try and sleep, but if she hasn’t by now...well.

Madison rolls over and pulls one of the pillows down under her elbow. “What?”

“The _apocalypse survival_ quiz,” he says, lip drawn up in retroactive distaste. “Do you remember it?”

“I remember.” Her brow furrows like she’s struggling.

“It told me I would last a few days, tops,” he laughs. “But, then, none of the questions really talked about foreign aid or rationing building supplies.”

“Or radio wiring,” she points out, helpfully.

“Or radio wiring,” he agrees. “We did okay, Madison. I’m sure Darryl’s fine.”

He says his name, and tells her it’ll be okay, because for the first time in a year, he actually believes it _might be_.


End file.
